hat was to be done
next.

"I suppose we must believe that Gloy is all right," said Lowrie, "so we
needn't concern ourselves about his life at the present time."

"He says he is still the prisoner," said Yaspard musingly; then after a
long pause he added, "Look here, boys, we might as well go on with this
night's performance as far as we can without our captive. We can
possess ourselves of his intended 'cell' (in spite of this horrid
'sell'), and we can make it ready for him as we intended, in the hope
that he will render himself into the hands of his conquerors as a true
knight should."

"All serene," was Lowrie's reply; and Gibbie added, "Just so."

So in the grey, quiet "dim" the _Osprey_ swept silently through the
Hoobes and brought up at the "dyke-end," where she had stopped in the
afternoon when Signy was the Viking's sole companion.

Yaspard alone jumped on shore. "Keep her off," he whispered, as if an
army of enemies were in ambush close by; "don't fasten her until I give
the signal that the coast is clear."

Having so given his orders, he set off up the hill, dodging behind turf
walls and creeping along knolls, so that no watchful eyes at
Trullyabister could detect his approach.

There is no real night in those regions when summer is in its prime,
therefore Yaspard's precautions were necessary if he required to steal
unawares upon the scene.

When within a short distance of the old house a backdoor suddenly
opened and fule-Tammy came out carrying a peat-keschie. He was going
to the stack for fuel, and the particular stack he meant to visit
happened to be the very object behind which Yaspard crouched.

"If," thought the boy, "he comes round _this_ end of the stack I'm done
for."

But Tammy didn't. He always attacked a peat-stack from the point
nearest the house, so he placed his keschie[1] at a convenient height
on the broken side of the stack, and lazily proceeded to fill it with
peats. Tammy had a habit, common in half-wits, of talking loudly to
himself, and as he filled his keschie he declaimed in Yaspard's
hearing--

"Na, na! I ken wha wad get the raiding-strake[2] if I was to gie them
the run o' the raubit-house; and where wad a' my night-sports be? and
what wad come o' the Trows if I let the boys rumble ower a'?"

As he piled the peats he went on talking in a disconnected, and to
Yaspard, very incomprehensible, manner about midnight revels and
strange beings who doubtless had a certain